


Tap Into Your Strength

by Neffectual



Series: 104 Reasons to Stay Alive [25]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:53:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2594381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi is struggling to come to terms, and finds large hands missing in the most difficult times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tap Into Your Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't read this if you are still grieving.  
> Titled from Vienna Teng's 'Medea'.

After the funeral, the bed is white and bare, made up like a shroud, and it calls to many memories to cope with, and so the man falls backwards onto it, worn and warm from the summer sun, eyes red and itching, which he puts down to allergies. Phantom hands slide and glide, undressing him slowly, peeling back each layer and revealing scar tissue and bruised skin, until he is laid bare, pale skin on white sheets, eyes resolutely closed as kisses are ghosted over his eyelids, his wrists held down briefly before the presence backs away, and Levi realises he is hard, stretching a hand down, whether to cover himself or to touch, he does not know. But there they are again, those big, strong hands which dwarf his, holding him still and steady, idle strokes making him hiss a little, biting his lip as restless hips shift upwards, demanding, imploring, begging. When the kisses and those hot hands are too much, he lets himself open his eyes, and for a second, meets those above him, soft and warm and loving.

  
Those eyes are blue, blue, impossibly blue, and when he comes, realises he is crying, and that the sob is only half-pleasure. His other hand gropes across the mattress, fingers scrabbling, reaching for something, and finds only the handkerchief he’d placed there earlier. There is no one beside him. The bed, the room, the air is empty, no cries of completion from beside him, no hand to grasp his, no sweet kisses pressed into his neck. Grief is ugly, and it spreads across him as he rolls over, face in the pillow, fingers clawed in the sheets, and muffles something which is neither scream nor cry. The noises he makes are something he has only heard before from wounded animals caught in traps, begging for an end to the pain, and he does not understand how the pillow soaked through with tears can still smell like someone whose loss is ever-present and unmissable. He feels like all trace of the man should be gone from the world, as if he had never been, but that would be too easy for those left behind.

  
When he pulls on a dressing gown, rust-red and old from continuous wear, it feels cold against his skin, sex and sorrow flushing him pink in angry blotches which are neither attractive nor comforting. His arms are welted with scratches, never yet breaking the skin, but getting closer every night he must do this, every night he must lie alone in the too-big, empty bed which feels too small to contain all his grief and rage. He fights the sheets in his sleep, slaughtering invisible enemies, as if he could have been one step faster, one move ahead, as if he can change, in dreams, what has become his reality. His subordinates do not meet his eyes, look away as he sits at breakfast, Erwin’s uniform too large against his skin, still swallowed in the scent of someone who has been cold for weeks. The office has been packed up, but Levi took all of his lover’s personal belongings to his rooms, and has refused to let anyone catalogue them.

  
His superiors are not accepting a time of grief, a period of mourning which needs to occur, and so they push him to each and every edge they can find, waiting for him to throw himself off onto their mercy. Instead, he lets them walk all over him, and only leaves the room when they have finished speaking. The wall is dented, and two of his fingers are strapped up against the swelling and purple-black hue of the bruise, and slowly, they stop pushing his buttons, and deal with Mike instead. There are whispers that Levi has gone mad, that he rends his clothing and weeps in the hallways like a widow, but in truth, the closest he has got to expressing his grief in public was holding Hanji’s hand at the funeral, eyes wide and empty, like a child who could not understand what was happening. Now, even she is shut out of his life.

  
The nights are not the hardest part, all of it is the hardest, each and every waking second in which he has to know that Erwin is gone, and every dream where he is just too late to save him, yet again. But alone, he can scream and rant and rave, can tell Erwin exactly what he thinks of him, and can swear to follow him into the ground. Levi wishes he believed in something beyond this plane, wishes that Erwin had done so, at least. He wishes that Erwin had taken him with him, that he had not gone alone into the sweet dark, wishes that he had gone instead, because Erwin was always the kinder, greater man, and Levi does not know how to live without his guidance. Hanji cried at the funeral, her other hand held tight by Mike, holding her steady, but there were no tears in Levi’s eyes, because he did not yet believe that this had happened, did not yet accept that Erwin could be gone; he was such a big presence, large hands and beaming smile, a booming laugh, and expansive gestures when he was angry, so solid and there and immovable, and the idea that he will not round the corner again, or be waiting naked in the bed they shared, is unacceptable.

  
Levi has never flatly refused to accept the truth before, and he finds it almost liberating for the first week, to believe Erwin with be back from the capital any day now, and that the pitying looks the recruits give him when he collects Erwin’s mail are simply because his uniform needs pressing. He sleeps in Erwin’s shirt, because the other man always liked to come home to that, solid proof that Levi missed him although he would say nothing of the sort, mouth curling up at the corners. It takes a month for him to realise that he is prolonging his own suffering, and break down, fourteen days spent in his own room, subsisting on meagre meals as he lies in Erwin’s fading scent, and waters it down more with tears.

  
“When does it stop?” he asks Hanji, and the look she gives him is pity, shot through with her own grief, “When will I stop looking for him in every room?”  
She shakes her head solemnly, and does not answer, her mouth a thin line as light glitters off tears behind her glasses.  
“Tell me!” he demands, and her patience snaps, finally.  
“It doesn’t stop.” She says, forcefully, then takes a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”  
Levi shakes his head, a sharp refusal, and lets her hold him, just for a moment, before he straightens, and turns to address the recruits. Some of them will die today – and he cannot say that he doesn’t hope to be one of the casualties.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of coming and crying at the same time is thanks to me, after my best friend passed away. I found I could hold it all together until the point of orgasm, then I would suddenly be sobbing uncontrollably, as if that moment where my brain had let go in pleasure had let go of all my tightly-held control.
> 
> Written in the dark, missing him. Death is fucking stupid.


End file.
